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My initial impression is that, since Israel isn't known for using incendiary devices, the missile strike set off something like a gas cannister and triggered a major fire that way.

Which is really something that should have been thought about before authorising a strike like that.

I suspect it has been 'thought about' and the response is that it's proportionate in each and every case.

It's not at all clear whether a Conservative Party that beat expectations this year would go forward in a centre-right direction, as opposed to deciding that its success was because of populism and it should therefore become more like Reform.

I think regardless of the result they will go in a more populist direction, they seem desperate to do this already as you can see they are much more focused on winning voters back from Reform than Labour.

If Biden would campaign for some Supreme Court reform, such as one or two ideas he could pluck out of the fourth chapter of the "Final Report" published by the bipartisan commission that he appointed in 2021, I would love it and I would enthusiastically support him this year. I know he doesn't want to "pack" the Court or impose term limits on federal judges, but there were ideas in the fourth chapter of that Report that could be very appealing.

[a Vietnamese citizen had been kidnapped from Slovakia and that then Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák was behind it.]

You noticed that thread on IGD about why no-one talks about Vietnam's human rights abuses?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trịnh_Xuân_Thanh

On July 23, 2017, TC2 allegedly kidnapped Trịnh Xuân Thanh in Berlin. He and his companion were kidnapped in the Tiergarten area. A rescue vehicle with Czech license plates was involved in the incident.[5] Witnesses reported that they only realized it was a kidnapping when they heard his companion screaming.[6] From Germany, Trinh Xuan Thanh was transferred to Prague and from Prague to Bratislava. In his memoires, Slovak ex-president Andrej Kiska mentions that few days after the kidnapping incident, one of Kiska's bodyguards told him that a Vietnamese citizen had been kidnapped from Slovakia and that then Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák was behind it. The bodyguard learned this from his colleagues. One of them is said to have flown with the abducted Vietnamese to Moscow. [7] In 2019, Slovakian police critic Ivan Matušík found an invoice for 17,000 euros from the Slovak Ministry of Interior to the Vietnamese Ministry of Interior for flight costs to Moscow dated July 26, 2017.[8]

This case has been popping up from time to time for the past seven years. The National Criminal Agency has now indicted eight people in the case, including agents of Vietnamese intelligence service, a former advisor to Robert Fico (now a citizen of Nigeria) and Tô Lâm, the man who was Vietnam's Minister of Public Security at the time and now happens to be the newly elected President

_{(There's actually a not insignificant Vietnamese minority in Slovakia, about 0.2% of population. Last year they were recognized as an official minority and gained representation on various ethnic/culture-related quangos. There's even more of them in Czechia, almost 1%.)}


And more censorship news, a continuation of this:

They do put pressure on opposition media and government politicians started boycotting political talkshows on “unfriendly” channels, but it’s just one part of the strategy. [...] Private media is also eager to help Fico if it makes them money. The staff at TV Markíza formed a union a few weeks ago and threatened a strike after allegations of pressure from management to make the news less critical of the government.

After the political talkshows on JOJ and TA3 televisions were forced to end earlier this year due to a boycott by government politicians, the one on Markíza is the only major one left. In a truly incredible moment, Markíza's chief political journalist Michal Kovačič ended yesterday's broadcast of his talkshow by calling out not just the government but his own management for political pressure and censorship.

Slovakia is currently experiencing a struggle over the Orbánisation of our broadcasting, and the future of RTVS is being debated in public. However, this struggle is actually taking place everywhere. But it is happening quietly and stealthily. If we do not stop it, it will have devastating consequences for Slovak democracy. We face pressures not only from politicians but also from our own leadership. Thanks to the fact that our editorial staff did not get scared, got together and faced them together, today our programming has a completely different shape from what our leadership is pushing for.

Con to Lab switchers care about the economy and public services, while Con to Reform switchers are basically single issue anti-immigration voters.

Relatedly, Reform voters are once again shown to be very disproportionately politically engaged, which makes their underperformance in basically every election even odder (read likely big polling error).

Maybe it's more a matter of the *quality* of said disproportionate political engagement, i.e. a higher share of social-media-monopolizing shut-ins--that is, they're the reason the "do not read the comment threads" news-link rule of thumb exists...

You got the first round too?

I'm not sure exactly how this is defined, but it seems bizarre to have Harris behind Newsom and RFK. Surely, Biden dying gives her a very legit shot at the presidency and is something not crazy unlikely. Whereas RFK jr. is literally impossible, he has zero path.

Wasn't SC-01 like Trump +8 in 2020 (and moving leftward?) Safe R seems a bit much.

They have FL-13 at Likely R too. If that’s not considered Safe R neither should SC-01.

Also both have Dems with decent fundraising.

Luna is an atrocious candidate, on par with Boebert

Also, unlike in SC-1, Democrats actually have a seemingly somewhat stronger than expected wave insurance candidate in FL-13 (still nothing amazing, but about two rungs above the generic some dude she initially appeared to be).  Mace is a very weak incumbent who may or may not have genuine mental health issues and is at her core basically a really trashy redneck sorority airhead (which isn’t the best fit for her district), but she is now in a Republican enough district that she’s basically safe for the time being in a GE despite being (to quote South Park) something out of a stereotype coloring book.  I think she’d have lost in the old district lines to an A-list opponent, but she’s not going to draw any serious GE opposition right now. 

By contrast, Luna is so unhinged and ideologically out of sync with her district (as opposed to Mace, who is stylistically out of touch, but ideologically bipolar and strikes me as a Ron Johnson type who talks very, very, very differently to her constituents/Charleston local media than she does in Congress or in front of national media or at out-of-district events) that she [Luna] almost lost in 2022 to a pretty unheralded Democratic sacrificial lamb.  At her core, Luna is an unhinged MAGA nutjob and it really shows.  Incidentally, I’d argue that a stronger Democratic candidate almost certainly would’ve beaten her in 2022.  I think Democrats made a mistake by not rubbing anyone more serious than wave insurance here, but who knows what the internal polling showed. 

Trump has a vision, it's an apocalyptic one but he has it

That barely counts as a real vision. It's just petty revenge.

Petty revenge for the average R, real life ruination for other law abiding citizens.

It's too late for that, maybe if there was an obvious election winner waiting in the wings but there isn't. Any alternative candidate would be a gamble not worth taking. Like it or not we have to stick with Biden and hope.